Commvergence

[Ted Byrne]

I have four of my images  matted and framed elegantly above my office desk. I chose the quartet because they bring me solace and reinforce my self confidence. But, today I wondered if they might not also be some of the last images in the historyof still photography.

No, not my own work. But the whole kaboodle is going away.  Have you heard the expression, “disruptive technology”? I have created a word in an article some years ago… “Commvergence”. It is about the convergence of communication media. They are  all inexorably coming together.  Very soon…. VERY soon… there will be devices capable of effortlessly interlacing everything we call media.

Recently a vendor called NXTBOOK offered my magazine a product which is essentially a piece of software that creates something on your monior which looks like a magazine flat on a desktop  by clicking the edges you can page through it. Every link on the cover and inside is hot. Every printed word can be linked to dictionaries, data bases, aor any other concept or idea.  Every one.

Every still picture can be turned into a video through aclick that is controlled by the < - > symbols we’ve been  trained to use. Items within the video can be made hot. See a cereal box on the table? Click it and more videos emerge… and every video is accompanied by full fidelity sound. Every character can be accompanied by a back story rendered in any media. The ads are animated with sound  and full video support. The text is an efficient information delivery system,  and by an approprate click the computer will read the text aloud… or it can all be downloaded to your ipod for automotive listening.

The entire mag can be downloaded for full access interaction on an iPod yet to be sold.

Of course the magazine is in full color, pages can be accessed through the table of contents. Ads are cross linked tot he advertising company’s web sites.

Importantly still photographs in the “magazine” are  images directly taken from video frames. So high speed cameras are used to create frames that are 10mpxls  with sufficient shutter speed to arrest much motion blur. Every frame is a potential still. Hence the whole video is a sum of stills.

Switch to another technology… those ubiquitous digital frames people are using to display their still photographs from memory cards.  I saw one in a discount store selling for about $14. We are VERY close to those devices displaying the out put of those high speed cameras, either as stills, or at the discretion of someone holding a remote control, as full videos with or without sound.

We all know how astonishing large storage devices are getting compressed into  tiny spaces. Which will allow further commvergence.  And given the explosion in wireless speees and distance, I suspect that these frames can be fed … or will be fed easily from somd central computer acting as a server in any home or office.

Once upon a time electric lighting was a marvel.  Bulbs were extremely expensive so things were arranged around  bulbs. Now that bulbs are almost free, bulbs are arranged around everything.

In the near future we will buy multiple packs of processors at convenience stores  at prices lower than multiple packs of bulbs. Add wireless transmitting and we will arrange processor output around everything.

Now combine an improved generation of NXTBOOK to wildly available processors plus flashlight (or pencil) sized devices which will channel them to any use you can imagine.  BTW that  computer server I mentioned above might soon be one of those pencil devices I just mentioned (or an implanted chip).


Now to my point.

As I looked at those four prints above my desk, I thought of someone I know who has three of those photo frames in his office each flashing terrible snapshots  throughout his day. They make him happy, they make me depressed. But in a world where we are each now permitted to build our own unique media paradigms, who am I to judge?

The thing is that soon he will own one of those  high speed full function multi media cameras and at that point… good bye stills. And as quick as you can say George Clooney is a midget…  still photography will disappear more rapidly than film went away.

And stills will be one tiny part of a multi media experience…Commverged… Hanging up there over desks with an impermanence that’s almost impossible to comprehend as anyone can diddle with the with the NXTBOOK like software on every one of those screens. 

Or maybe not.  Wuddaya think?

[habakuk]

Thanks for the posting, Ted. Interesting thoughts for sure. I don't think still photography will fade and go away, but it will have to redefine itself. Just as the availability of cheap digital cameras has changed the way people use photography in their life, maybe even how they look at their own life through photography, the availability of cameras in cell phones has changed the world (a bit at least). So will the device you described.

What I think will happen is, that still photography will become much more precious, and single-frame-photographers will have to think about their work/art. I for myself belief in concentration, reduction, focus, emptiness to give way for deeper thoughts and experience. This is what my understanding of photography is - and I don't see how a movie could achieve that better than a single frame.

So, for the superficial, documentary approach of showing a sequence, a procedure, a movement a movie and certainly a movie with lots of interaction and links to other content will be what we will have at hand. And I am not afraid of that. However, in a world that will be soaked and flooded in information, a still, silent, empty moment will become even more precious than it is today. and I think this is the BIG chance for photograpy.

I don't see how multimedial content enrichment and linking could be of any help to sink into one of my scenes of serenity, where the reduction of picture elements and colors make your mind calm down and relax first, just to become active and liberated in the next moment...

cheers
®

[eob]

Well, a video camera won't necessarily replace a still camera, but it will certainly become more of an alternative than it is today (or yesterday). More and more digital photographers start using RAW format as opposed to shooting only in JPEG and/or only black and white. They realize that by using RAW they achieve higher technical potential, they preserve color, and they still may convert those photos to JPEGs or to b&w. Similar situation will occur with those new video cameras that will be able to shoot at 60 fps and with a 10 mpx resolution. Why bother with a still camera when you can make a moving picture and at the same time you can extract high quality stills from that same movie? Of course, making movies is a lot different than making photographs and that's why I don't think still photography is going to disappear completely.

In regard to the 'commvergence', I think, today, we are already experiencing a huge information overload and there will be a substantial resistance and/or resentment toward further promotion of an "electronic noise" polluting our lives.